Capital Markets

This section contains all our capital markets jobs. If you work in the capital markets division of an investment bank you could do anything from originating, to structuring, to syndicating. Origination specialists are usually senior capital markets bankers. Their job involves a lot of travel as they meet clients in an effort to gain insight into their financing needs and persuade them to offer business to the bank.

By comparison, structurers are desk-bound. They spend their time creating complex financial products to suit a company's financing needs as communicated by the originators.

It's up to the people on the syndication desk to ready the market for the sale. They calculate the best price range for the product in question, assess demand, and make sure the correct documents are in place.

Financial products are born or "originated" in the capital markets divisions of investment banks. There, capital markets bankers produce the securities used by companies and institutions who want to raise money on the public markets. Their two main products are stocks, which are traded on the equity capital markets, and bonds, traded on the debt capital markets.

Investment banks act as "underwriters" on behalf of the company issuing stocks or bonds. In return for a fee known as the "underwriting spread", they assume the risk of issuing the securities and do the work necessary to bring them to market.

Equity capital markets (ECM) bankers help companies raise money by issuing shares. As underwriters, they guarantee that they will sell the shares the company is issuing for a certain price. If they can't find enough people to buy the shares at the price they've agreed with the client, the bank is obliged to buy the shares itself. These shares might be part of an initial public offering (IPO), or a rights issue.

Debt capital markets (DCM), meanwhile, deal with saleable units of debt in the form of bonds, including treasury bonds issued by governments, investment grade bonds issued by companies and high yield bonds, which are more likely to default and therefore pay a higher rate of return. DCM is also called the fixed-income market.

Jobs in capital markets divisions also include issuing more complex products, such as equity-linked securities - or bonds that can be converted into equities at a pre-arranged price - and derivatives.